My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 326

Episode Date: April 10, 2023

This week’s hometowns include kids learning about the aviator Bessie Coleman and a weed dealer who needs a favor. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is actually happening is a podcast that features extraordinary true stories of life-changing events told by the people who live them. In a special five-part series called Point Blank, this is actually happening sheds a light on the forgotten spree killings of Rancho Tejama. So this is actually happening wherever you get your podcasts. Hello and welcome to my favorite murder, the mini-soad. That's right. This is the one where we read you the emails.

That's what we say. Oh, that's right. Our names. We got it wrong last time. You know, this podcast is hard because imagine how difficult reading your stories to you. Ugh. We have to stretch all day before we record. Oh my God.

So much warm-up. Yeah. A lot of vocal and physical warm-ups. Yeah. Difficult. Jumping jacks. Just 2,000 jumpy jacks. Yeah.

We go first. Okay. This is called mean babysitter or kids torturing each other. My MFM fam, and then it says MFMF, my MFM fam, furry critters and other friends. I just heard the story on mini-soad 319 of the sibling who stuffed each other into boxes to see how quickly they could escape, and it reminded me of my favorite game me and my cousins would play called mean babysitter in the late 90s, early 2000s. And the reason I picked this fucked up thing, it jogged a memory that we fucking did this

too. Yeah. Are you ready for this? Mm-hmm. We would regularly spend a weekend every other month or so together at my grandparents' cottage slash camp. The basement was unfinished and just filled with beds, and when we weren't outside, that was our playground.

So mean babysitter. My sister was the mom, my older cousin was the babysitter, and me and my younger cousin were the kids. It's always the younger cousins who are the babies. My sister who would leave us with the babysitter, AKA go upstairs and do her makeup or watch TV. Oh, that's the best role. And the babysitter would open the pullout couch to his bed form, make us lay down across

it with wise, not up and down, and then close the couch and leave us in there for five to ten minutes while she sat on it or went upstairs with my sister. That was it, that was the game. That is a mean babysitter, though. We fucking did this. Did you really? Yes. I totally just jogged this memory of like both my mom and my dad's house had a pullout

couch. And it was like... You and Leanne Ashrup wait till they did it to you? We would all take turns, yeah. And then you'd sit on it and then you'd be like, dad, where's Georgia? I don't know where she is. I'd be giggling from as I suffocate slowly. Oh, shit.

Terrible. How did we survive? I mean, I do have a very early memory of my cousin Stevie zipping me into a sleeping bag and then like pulling a thing tight at the top. And I think I've told you this before, and I just remember going like, okay, I have a choice right now. I could panic and go crazy, but he's going to let me out eventually. Yeah.

So just stay calm until he lets me out. Wow. It's like as a child having to do that is fucking not right at all. Well, yeah, you had to like learn your fucking skills as a young child. Very, very early on. And then it says, we did this next one too. Another favorite game was, guess what you're drinking, ours was called guess what you're eating.

I swear to God, we had a game called guess, oh no, it was called guess what I just put in your mouth. Guess what I just put in your mouth. I totally, I have to text my siblings, it says, they're opening a vitamin or something and you're like, um, it's really bitter, like, chewing on a vitamin where we would blindfold someone and make a disgusting cocktail, think ketchup, milk, gummy worms, soda. And then the blindfolded kid would have to guess what was in it. Dude.

This is our favorite fucking game. Guess what I'm putting into your mouth. We didn't get internet up there until 2013, 2015 ish. And even then we weren't allowed to use it unless it was an emergency. I have lots of other delinquent children left alone games slash stories if you're interested. Stay sexy and keep torturing your siblings slash cousins best Emma. Your sister's gamifying being mean to you, like getting you to volunteer for abuse because it's a quote unquote game is hilarious and, but guess what I'm putting in your mouth.

That almost makes me grateful that my sister, all she ever did was go get out of my room, get out of my room, like, just get away from me as opposed to like, let me torture you. That could have been a lie, for sure. What was the grossest thing that you had put in your mouth? Well, there was definitely raw egg and ketchup was a popular thing. Who the hell, like vanilla, you know, mixed with ketchup and milk and it was just disgusting. Latchkey children. Oh, yeah.

Jesus. Okay. Here's my first one. This subject line is badass women, Karen, Georgia and Bessie Coleman. And then in parentheses, it says in no particular order. And it just starts, I'm not sure if this counts as a hometown fucking hooray or just general nonsense, but I was so elated by this encounter I had to share. In episode 312, Karen shared the story of the life of Bessie Coleman, the incredible

badass pilot. I like so many white kids growing up in rural Texas have never heard of Bessie Coleman before and was awestruck by her perseverance and Karen's storytelling abilities. Fast forward to a year later and I'm working as a school librarian in an extremely affluent, mostly white, elementary school. Second grade began a research unit on inspiring people. So they came to the library to get books. All the girls rushed to this section on Amelia Earhart and we quickly ran out of her biographies.

Luckily, inspired by your episode, I'd recently purchased several books on Bessie Coleman and I redirected some of the students to her section. By the end, Bessie Coleman was the new it girl in second grade. I wanted to thank you all for introducing me to this amazing woman who I should have learned about when I was a kid. But thanks to you, I will be able to introduce kids to this incredible woman and broaden their idea of what inspiring people look like. Please keep telling stories, especially stories about women of color and other people whose

histories are often ignored, your influence is far reaching and will hopefully help these kids see the world a little differently. Rachel. Oh my God, that's so special. Rachel, thank you. That's a lovely compliment and you're doing God's work and I swear to God this thing that book banning is actually happening in America in 2023 is the scariest, most indicative thing of a fascist takeover.

It cannot happen. We have to fight for this country, we have to fight these lunatic people who are trying to take books away and say that children can't learn about people that aren't white or that people that they have decided in their own tiny worlds aren't good. It can't be happening. It's so fucked up. Every time I see a book banning story and I think things like this are happening lately where it's so extreme that you just get freaked out and don't know what to do.

We actually did this for a library that they tried to close and then everyone started donating to one library. If you just look in your town or your area, your county or your state and you see if anything like this is happening and you figure out how you can act locally to fight book banning. Even if it's showing up at PTA meetings or something just to be a voice of I don't want this to be happening because it's so extreme and it feels like they're doing it. All these fucking shitty laws that they've been passing at midnight or behind people's backs are like when no one's paying attention.

It's just awful. Yeah. Thank you for saying that. Because here's what could be happening. People are being educated. Yeah, exactly. Hey, I'm Mike Corey, the host of Wanderers Against the Odds. In our next season, three friends backcountry skiing in Alaska disturb a hibernating bear

and she attacks. The skiers must wait for help to arrive before one of them succumbs to his injuries. Listen to Against the Odds on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. Now we're going to talk about landfill trash dad stories. I will absolutely have a landfill rant at the end of this. No, no. I hope so. Okay.

Hi, all. On Minnesota 316, you asked for stories about what people have found in landfills and I finally feel like I have a reason to write in. When I was little, my dad would bring home some weird things from the landfill and it was always super exciting for me and all the other neighborhood kids. Sometimes he would bring back jars of bugs like cicadas or even black widows. Oh. Here's a jar of black widows.

Here, look at this, but don't open it. One time he hauled a tub. That's what I'm putting in your mouth. Oh, no. No, no, no, no. So sorry, so sorry. One time he hauled a tub of bullfrogs out of his truck and into the front yard for us. Wow.

This is a great dad. This ultimately pissed off some of our neighbors because the frogs eventually hopped away down the street and ended up living in the pond. Another treasure was a slightly used disco ball that I hung in my room for years. Oh. But my favorite treasure was an electric corvette. Think like one of those battery powered Barbie jeeps that kids can ride inside of. He had founded at the landfill and brought it home, painted it from bright pink to dark

green just like his dad's old corvette and swapped the six volt battery out for 12 volt battery so it would go even faster. Yeah. As soon as he revealed it to me on my birthday, the first thing I apparently said was, I wish it was a pink corvette, daddy, cute sigh. I was definitely popular in my small cul-de-sac. Oh, and the other thing he also brought back was an enormous black plastic pipe, the kind used for culverts, and we would take turns getting inside of it and rolling down the

street. I was obviously the coolest kid on the block. My dad is one of the coolest guys I've ever known, and we share love for cheap joys, which I'll always be grateful for. We love going to garage sales or estate sales to find interesting, weird stuff. It's always a toss up when he gives you a gift because it could be from a job site, the dump, or even just something he found on the sidewalk, example, a real diamond ring. I'll never get tired of hearing my dad's crazy stories or learning about the dumb things

he's done, accidentally setting a tennis court on fire, for example, and asking him about stories from working at the landfill. He just mentioned that one time he cut into a bag of garbage and found bones. After hurrying off to tell someone to call police, it turned out there was a skeleton manufacturer on the island, and these were throwaways. Sounds like a joke. Anyway, stay sexy and ask your dad about his weird stories because they are always hiding something juicy, Courtney.

So true, the idea that he enjoyed his work enough to have the presence of mind to be thinking of his kids, looking for stuff, being in it, that's really cool. Totally. That's so cute. It's very good. Okay, so the subject line of this is dinosaur island and donuts, and then it just starts, this story has it all, and then it says in parentheses, kinda. My dad worked a lot when I was a kid, so needless to say, I cherished any time I got with him.

Being the youngest of four, I was his baby, and we had our one special date we would go on whenever my family went up to our cabin in the summer. My dad and I would go to a small gas station, get those dry white powdered donuts that mom would never let me have, and we'd take the canoe out to a little island in the lake that we called Dinosaur Bone Island. Over years, this was our ritual, I would spend hours rummaging around and proudly presenting the bones to my dad, who would be sipping a beer before grabbing another donut and getting back to my important archaeological work.

Fast forward a couple years, and I'm talking to my siblings about this, probably trying to make them jealous in true youngest child fashion when they dropped the bombshell. To my surprise, they were not dinosaur bones, and I had spent hours digging my hands through lake otter shit, and presenting the digested remains of small animals to my dad, and then in sesanol caps, and then going back to eat the donuts. Oh God. Ew. It's so gross.

So gross. So gross. And like the older siblings, like, yeah, here's what actually was happening. Exactly. Let me ruin this precious memory for you. And then it says, my dad is now a cancer survivor, and I cherish memories like this. And I'm so grateful I get to continue to make new ones with him, like the time I dared him to do a keg stand at his 60th birthday.

Hell yes. Sweet. Love all you do, Cass, she, her. Thank you, Cass. That was a beautiful, disgusting memory. That was really sweet. Okay, here's my last one. This is called an awkward favor for my Swiss weed dealer.

Hmm. It says, hello all, no one named, no one forgotten. I'm a big fan of MFM since my friend turned me on to you about five years ago, and I've been a religious listener to this podcast will kill you since Georgia shouted it out. Ooh. This makes it nice and awkward when a coworker hops in the elevator with me and asks what podcast I'm listening to. I've written in a couple of times, but alas, no dice.

I hope at least your hometown picker gets a giggle added this unrelated to anything mentioned on the podcast anecdote. Our story takes place in 2012 when I was a freshman out of college and working as an au pair in Basel, Switzerland, Basel, Basel, Basel, I'm going to say Basel. Is there an E in there? I think it is Basel. Back then I was an avid redditor and a pretty big pot head. It seems like a connection there.

They definitely go together. Yeah. I found a few subreddits, including slash trees, and then it says, AKA the weed one. I guess trees is sleuthy, real sleuthy, and went on the slash Basel subreddit to see if anyone had recommendations of what to do while I was there. I received a message from a redditor who said he was a student in Basel, saw my post on trees and offered to sell me weed if I needed some while living there. It's a crossover of her subreddits.

I was two months into a forced tolerance break and in desperate need to meet people my age, so I agreed to meet this guy in a very public beer garden. Probably dumb, but so was I. Thank God I rocked up to a small, very nerdy and very kind guy who was getting his master's degree in physics or some shit. We'll call him Alex. We had a couple beers. He gave me an eighth for free as a welcome to Basel gift, and he shared a ton of local

knowledge about the city with me. Alex became my friend in addition to my weed dealer, and I would meet up with him about once a month to re-up, and it says he did start making me pay. He invited me to college parties and introduced me to his friend group. It was great. After my year in Switzerland came to an end, I moved back to the US for a real job, quote, so I could actually afford my student loan bills. A few months after I moved back, I get a text from Alex telling me he has a new girlfriend

and wanted to get her a gift, but it only shipped to the US and Canada. He asked if he could ship it to me and if I would forward it on. Absolutely. Anything for you, my dude. The box comes, I bring it to the post office, and they hand me a custom slip. I realized then that I have no cooking clue what I'm actually mailing. I text Alex and ask him what's in the box because it felt like an invasion of privacy to open it without him knowing.

He gets super awkward on text and is like, no, no, no, no, don't open it. It's just a gift for my girlfriend. Don't open it. Really, Alex? Do you get sketchy after all of this? No chance. I immediately open the box in the middle of the post office, mind you. It turns out I was about to mail my nerdy Swiss weed dealer, a Hitachi magic wand.

I'm standing in the post office holding up the most hardcore vibrator in one hand and a bunch of medieval looking accessories in another. I pack everything back into the box, scribble personal massager on the custom slip, and get the fuck out. Whenever I tell this story to my friends, they ask if I still kept in contact with Alex. After paying me back for shipping, I literally never heard from him again. Thank you for the consistent laughter you've brought me over the years and for all you do for your listeners and community.

Stay sexy. And if you don't know what's in the box, open it in private. Steady she her. So true. I absolutely was sure it was going to be like a kilo of weed or however they measure weed. Yes, exactly. Something insane. And he's like, he's even more ashamed.

Yes. We're all so shame-based. Truly. Okay. This one's also kind of long, but I think worth it. And there's photos. So it says, dear Karen and Georgia, I love the work you do and I'm going to cut straight to the chase.

So sharing you talk about hidden treasure made me want to share this story with you. It's not really my story, more my late grandparents writing today, Boxing Day, on the day that they got married so many years ago. To put this in context, my grandma Irene met my granddad Peter back in 1943 at a dance when my granddad was back home on leave from war. She was 16. He was 19. They had three kids, my mom, my auntie and my uncle, and were very happily married until

sadly my grandma died from a long battle with leukemia back in 2011. I was 15 and devastated. Then in 2019, just before COVID hit, my granddad sadly passed away from dementia. It was a very sad time for all of us as my grandparents were like the glue holding everything together. When it came to sorting out the house to get ready to sell it, we had to go through my granddad's wardrobe. Now, this wardrobe was always a mystery to me and my younger brother as my granddad always

kept it locked, and the key was always inside his suit pocket, which he always wore. We never managed to get a peek inside even though we had many attempts to try and pick the lock to get in. Anyway, cue my auntie, mom, and uncle clearing the house all these years later, finally with the key they managed to get in. There wasn't anything gold or silver hiding in there, but right in the back, hidden away for over 70 years, was an old suitcase engraved with my granddad's name and his Royal Navy employment number.

Inside we found something far better than gold or silver. We found hundreds of handwritten letters from my grandma that she'd written my granddad from when they first met while he was away at war. So the treasure that he had locked away and treasured for all those years was far more special than we could have imagined. We all spent the next few months reading all the letters and going on this magical journey of their relationship, including one from when they first met. We secretly hoped we would find another suitcase while cleaning out the rest of the house with

the replies my granddad had sent my grandma, but no such luck. That lies with the imagination. I spent months scanning all the letters and putting it on a USB stick so all my family members had a copy. I wanted to share the first letter my grandma sent, so I've attached a copy and I've also transcribed it below. I'm sorry that this is a long story, but I hope you enjoyed it. Keep up the amazing work and stay sexy and always open the old suitcases.

Love Sophie, Nottingham, UK. Cute. Are you ready for this letter? Yes, definitely. I'm going to cry. I haven't read it and I'm going to cry. From September 6, 1943. My dear Peter.

Oh, shit. What if I can't read this letter? Okay. It's so private. This is literally a slice of history. Totally. They wrote this not thinking it would eventually get read on a fucking huge podcast. On a podcast.

So please forgive us, Irene and Peter. It's done with respect. So it says, my dear Peter, well, here I am writing you a few lines as I had promised, trusting you arrived back okay at your destination. I thought about you all day and especially about 430 when you were going back. What a pity we didn't meet sooner. Still, I expect it can't be helped. By the way, Peter, I must thank you for the lovely weekend I spent with you.

I enjoyed every minute of it, hoping the same applied to you. Let's hope it won't be long before you are here again. She's writing this to a man at war. Oh my God. He's at war. He's in fucking World War II. Totally. Okay.

Let's hope it won't be long before you're here again. I'm not much of a letter writer, so I'm hoping this letter doesn't bore you too much. She's got a big crush. Yeah, she does. She's trying to be cool. Yeah. Tonight I've washed my hair. And then in parentheses it says, what did you say about time, haha.

So Peter must have had a good sense of humor. Yeah. Tomorrow night, I might go to the futurist with mother to see springtime in the Rockies, so I'll be a good girl. Work's gone down okay, but it could be much better. Sometimes I wish I was in the forces. Peter, what do you think about girls joining up? Would you volunteer if you were in my place or stay at home?

Please let me know. Well, dear, I can't think of anything to write about, so we'll close, hoping to hear from you soon. Write as often as you possibly can. Cheerio and best of luck. Oh no. God bless you and keep you safe. Love Irene.

And there's four Xs. Oh my God. It's so sweet. It's so sweet. She was 16 too. Don't forget. She was 16. He's 19.

They just meet. Now he goes to basically probably get killed. He comes back. They get married. They spend the rest of their fucking lives together. They spend the rest of their lives together, and he keeps her letters for his entire life. Oh my God. Come on.

Amazing. What do you want? What more do you want in this world? We'll put the photo of the letter up on our Instagram for this episode page. Yeah. Yay. Yes. Sorry, that was just like, it's so sweet and it's also such a, it's like a slice of

real life. Yes. It's beautiful. So beautiful. Thank you, Sophie, for sharing that with us. Yeah. Thank you. All right.

Thanks for writing in and listening and hanging out with us. And stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Goodbye. Goodbye. Elvis, do you want a cookie? This has been an Exactly Right production. Our producer is Alejandra Keck.

And this episode was engineered and mixed by Steven Ray Morris. Steven, email your hometowns and fucking hurrays to myfavoritmurder at gmail.com. Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at myfavoritmurder and Twitter at myfavemurder. Goodbye. Goodbye. Listen, follow, leave us a review on Amazon Music, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, Prime members, did you know that you can listen to my favorite murder early and

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